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SEPARATION 

WAR  WITHOUT  END. 


By   M.    Edtiuard    Laboulaye, 


Mi -MI;I:R   OF  TI 


UPON  WHOM 
RESTS  THE  GUILT  OF  THE  WAR? 


SEPARATION: 

WAR  WITHOUT  END. 

.  >" 


By   M.    Edouard    Laboulaye, 


,.„, 


MEMBER    OF    THE    IXSTITUTE. 


New -Dork: 

WM.  C.  B«VANT  &  00.,  P.-tl.N"  I1:::: -,   11   \\-<At7  STKEET,  COKXElt  OK    MBERTY. 
1863. 


^ 
L  /As 


NATIONAL    UNITY: 

IT  MUST  NOT  BE  SURRENDERED. 


[From  the  N.  Y.  "Evening  Post,"  Feb.  7,  1863.] 

NEW  YORK,  February  7th,  1863. 
To  PARKE  GODWIN,  Esq. : 

I  send  you  herewith  a  translation  from  the  French  of  a  re- 
markable paper,  originally  published  in  the  Revue  Rationale 
of  Paris.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that,  in  this  critical  hour  of  our' 
national  history,  no  better  service  could  be  rendered  the  country 
than  to  give  it,  in  our  own  language,  the  widest  circulation 
amongst  the  people.  To  this  end  may  I  not  ask  you  to  give  it 
a  place  in  the  columns  of  the  Evening  Post  ? 

The  author  is  M.  EDOUARD  LABOULAYE,  member  of  the  Insti- 
tute and  Professor  of  Legislation  Comparee  in  the  College  of 
France — a  man  holding  the  highest  position  in  the  first  institu- 
tion of  the  world,  the  University  of  France — and  whose  whole 
life  has  been  devoted  to  the  study  of  the  subject  of  which  he 
writes. 

It  may  not  be  generally  known  that  the  lectures  of  the  pro- 
fessors in  all  the  colleges  and  schools  of  the  University  of 
France  are  open  and  free  to  all  who  may  chose  to  attend  them, 
so  that  the  seances  of  such  men  as  Laboulaye,  Michelet,  Quinet, 
and  other  eminent  scholars  and  scientists  are  crowded  by  the 
most  thoughtful  of  the  men  and  women  of  all  the  nations  of  the 
world,  who  make  Paris  their  resort  for  the  winter. 


538948 


I  have  before  me  a  letter  from  a  French  liberalist,  of  high 
character  and  attainments,  now  a  resident  of  the  United  States, 
who  has  himself  had  the  advantage  of  a  personal  intercourse 
with  M.  Laboulaye,  in  which  he  says  :  "  For  the  last  two  years 
scarcely  has  he,  in  his  chaire  de  legislation  comparee,  given  one 
of  his  eloquent  lectures  without  introducing  the  United  States 
— their  greatness,  their  constitution,  their  trials,  and  their  des- 
tinies. It  is  by  thus  particularizing  his  teachings  that  he  has 
aroused  for  America  a  universal  interest,  for  no  week  passes 
that  the  learned  professor  has  not  around  his  desk  representa- 
tives from  all  the  nations  of  Europe.  Even  ladies  of  all  ranks 
and  countries — English,  Russians,  Germans  and  Spaniards — 
seated  there,  side  by  side  with  the  students  of  the  Quartier 
Latin,  listen  to  und  applaud  his  eloquent  and  earnest  advocacy 
of  American  nationality  and  free  institutions." 

M.  Laboulaye  himself  relates  the  incident  by  which  hi 
thoughts  and  sympathies  were  first  turned  towards  the  peopl 
and  the  institutions  of  the  United  States.  Everybody  who  ha 
been  in  Paris  will  remember  the  long  rows  of  wooden  trays 
filled  with  the  strangest  jumble  of  old  books,  that  stretch  alon 
the  river  edge  of  the  Quai  Voltaire,  and  the  other  contiguou 
quais  on  that  side  of  the  Seine.  One  may  find  there  books  ii 
all  the  languages  of  the  world,  and  sometimes  stray  copies 
very  rare  works.  Well,  one  day,  now  several  years  ago,  M 
Laboulaye  amused  himself  with  rummaging  amongst  th 
old  books  exposed  for  sale"  on  the  Quai  Voltaire..  His  ey 
oaught  the  title  of  a  book  in  English  ;  he  took  it  up,  opened  i 
read  a  few  moments,  demanded  its  price,  paid  it,  some  few  sous 
and  with  his  eyes  still  fixed  upon  its  open  pages,  resumed  hi 
walk  towards  the  Champs  Elysee.  Arrived  there,  he  seate< 
himself  upon  one  of  the  numerous  chairs  always  ready  to  b 
hired,  and  continued  to  read  on  until  the  last  page  of  his  ne\ 
acquisition  was  finished ;  and  then,  instead  of  returning  hoim 


he  went  in  a  state  of  great  excitement  to  M.  Armand  Bertin,  at 
that  time  editor-in-chief  of  the  Journal  des  Debats,  and  on 
meeting  him  exclaimed  :  "  Congratulate  me,  I  have  to-day  put. 
my  hand  on  a  great  man."  And  such  was  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  he  spoke  of  his  new  discovery,  that  M.  Bertin  begged 
him  to  make  his  "  great  man  "  at  once  known  to  France.  M. 
Laboulaye,  without  delay,  set  to  work,  and  in  a  few  days  there 
appeared,  in  successive  numbers  of  the  Journal  des  Debats, 
three  masterly  articles.  The  first  was  "  on  the  works  of  Dr.  WM. 
ELLEET  CHANNING,"  for  it  was  a  stray  volume  of  his  sermons 
that  M.  Laboulaye  had  purchased  on  the  Quai  Voltaire,  and  he 
was  the  "  great  man  "  upon  whom  he  "  put  his  hand  "  that  day. 
The  second  article  was  entitled,  "The  Progress  of  Religious 
Ideas  in  New  England,"  and  the  last,  "  The  Present  Condition 
and  Probable  Future  of  the  Great  Republic." 

The  stray  seed  of  the  JSTew  England  Puritan  Reformer  took 
deep  root,  and  from  that  day  to  this  M.  Laboulaye  has  been  an 
earnest  student  of  American  ideas  and  institutions,  and  on  all 
occasions,  and  before  all  men,  the  unswerving  friend  and  cour- 
ageous advocate  of  the  people  and  government  of  the  Union. 

A  previous  article  of  M.  Laboulaye,  originally  published  in 
the  Journal  des  Debate,  entitled  "  A  Yiew  of  the  Causes  and 
Aims  of  the  Rebellion,"  had  a  wide  circulation  in  this  country 
through  the  columns  of  the  Evening  Post  and  other  public 
journals,  and  exerted  no  little  influence  upon  the  formation  of 
a  just  public  opinion,  here  as  well  as  abroad,  as  to  the  true 
character  of  the  slave.-masters'  conspiracy  to  overthrow  demo- 
cratic institutions  on  this  continent: 

These  latest  pregnant  words  of  the  distinguished  publicist 
reach  us  at  the  very  moment  of  their  greatest  need.  At  a 
moment  when  the  public  patience  seems  well  nigh  exhausted  ; 
when  here  at  the  north,  even  the  most  loyal  seem  to  lose  heart 
and  to  doubt,  and  the  disloyal,  under  the  guise  of  conservatism 


6 

and  in  the  name  of  democracy,  taking  courage,  strive  so  much 
the  more,  to  bewilder  and  divide  public  opinion  and  confound 
the  judgments  of  the  people  upon  questions  vital  to  national 
salvation.  At  this  critical  moment  there  comes  from  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  from  the  home  of  Lafayette  and  Rochain- 
beau,  an  answer  so  direct,  so  pointed  and  so  conclusive,  to  the 
most  nefarious  of  the  sophistries  of  the  northern  parasites  of 
the  slave-power,  that  it  cannot  fail  to  aid  in  confounding  their 
shameless  attempt  to  shift  the  guilt  of  the  war  from  the 
shoulders  of  their  southern  masters  and  to  lay  it  upon  those  of 
the  people  of  New  England.  This  most  enlightened  and  im- 
partial student  of  American  affairs,  looking  at  the  whole  great 
conflict,  from  its  inception  to  the  present  hour,  with  a  single 
eye  to  discover  the  truth,  declares  that  "  the  South  alone  is 
guilty." 

But  this  is  by  no  means  the  chief  point  of  M.  Laboulaye's 
argument.  To  yield  the  dissolution  of  the  national  unity — 
"  the  rending  asunder  of  the  country,"  that,  in  his  view,  is 
"  the  one  irreparable  degradation."  "  An  abdication,"  he  says, 
"  so  shameful,  for  a  people  accustomed  to  liberty,  is  not  even 
to  be  thought  of,  so  long  as  there  remains  a  single  man  or  a 
single  dollar  to  risk  in  the  struggle  to  keep  the  inheritance  of 
the  fathers." 

.  And  this  is  the  momentous  point  which,  I  think,  you,  and  all 
men  like  you,  who  have  the  ability  to  speak  and  a  great  audi. 
ence  who  wait  daily  upon  your  words,  should  press  home  upon 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people  and  their  rulers. 

For  any  people  to  permit  themselves  to  meditate  the  possi- 
bility of  a  surrender  of  their  nationality,  indicates  a  condition 
of  demoralization,  which  foretells  the  approach  of  utter  national 
decay,  the  coming  on  of  the  final  shame.  But  for  a  people  so 
planted,  so  nutured  by  the  Divine  Providences,  so  illustrated 
by  the  heroic  characters  and  deeds  of  their  great  founders,  as 


the  people  of  the  United  States — for  such  a  people,  inthe  very 
bloom  of  their  prime,  to  yield  up  their  national  unity  at  the 
arrogant  demand  of  a  few  thousand  slave-masters,  would  be 
such  an  ineffaceable  stain  upon  free  institutions,  upon  demo- 
cratic citizenship,  upon  Christian  civilization,  upon  human 
nature  itself,  as  is  not  to  be  paralleled  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  The  ignominious  delinquency  and  partition  of  Poland 
would  be  a  national  glory  compared  with  it.  And  yet  to  day, 
even  here  in  the  North,  not  to  speak  of  the  abettors  of  the 
great  treason — the  genuine  spawn  of  the  Tories  of  1776 — there 
are  men  calling  themselves  loyal,  who  begin  to  quail  and  to 
hint  at  a  possible  time  for  surrender — at  a  possible  time  to  de- 
file the  graves  and  desecrate  the  memories  of  Washington,  of 
Adams,  of  Jefferson,  of  Hamilton  and  their  great  compeers. 

I  know  that  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  the  Ages,  has  always 
"the  stones"  out  of  which  he  can  "raise  up  children  unto 
Abraham" — new  and  faithful  nations.  Are  we  to  have  no  other 
significance  in  the  history  of  the  race,  but  to  illustrate  these 
portentous  words  of  the  Divine  Master  of  these  Christian  cen- 
turies 1 

How  many  years  of  almost  hopeless  toil  and  bloody  sweat 
did  the  fathers  devote  to  the  acquisition  of  the  great  inheritance, 
to  maintain  which  we  have  given  but  less  than  two,  of  bewil- 
dered and  oftentimes  aimless  preparation  ?  From  the  meeting  of 
that  first  Congress  of  the  American  people,  in  this  city  of  New 
York,  in  1765,  in  which  "  the  brave  and  noble-hearted"  Gads- 
den,  of  South  Carolina,  gave  utterance  to  the  firgt  grand  formula 
of  American  nationality — "  Away  with  your  royal  charters, 
and  let  us  stand  on  the  broad,  common  ground  of  those  natural 
rights  that  we  all  feel  and  know  as  men  ;  no  more  New  Eng- 
landers,  no  more  New  Yorkers  on  this  continent ;  but  all  of  us 
Americans" — from  that  hour  onward  until  1789,  when  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  in  their  own  common  name,  estab- 


8 

lished  and  set  in  motion  «i  national  constitution,  the  great  strug- 
gle went  on.  The  men  of  the  first  revolution,  almost  without 
means,  surrounded  by  all  manner  of  perils,  and  backed  by 
comparatively  but  a  handful  of  loyal  people,  waged  a  strug- 
gle of  twenty-four  years  for  the  right  of  independent  national 
existence  ;  a  right  which,  in  their  judgment,  involved  all  other 
human  rights  and  interests — social,  civil;  and  political— peace, 
prosperity,  and  glory.  And  in  this  struggle,  let  it  not  be  for- 
gotten, was  included  a  bloody  war  of  seven  years — Valley  Forge 
and  all.  Less  than  three  millions  of  people,  without  ships> 
without  arms  or  munitions,  without  money  or  credit,  but  only 
with  an  earnest  will  and  stout  hearts,  against  the  first  naval 
and  military  power  of  the  world,  fighting  for  a  great  idea,  for 
that  pearl  without  price,  Liberty,  to  be  set  in  the  golden  band 
of  national  unity. 

NATIONAL  UNITY  :  that  is  the  muniment  of  title  to  the  inher- 
itance transmitted  by  the  fathers,  and  which  the  American 
people  to-day  stand  pledged  before  the  world,  to  keep  intact  in 
all  its  integrity,  both  of  exterior  estate  and  of  interior  idea,  at 
the  cost  of  the  last  dollar  of  their  wealth  and  the  last  drop  of 
their  blood.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  judgment  of  all  the  enlight- 
ened and  true  friends  of  freedom  and  humanity,  confirmed  by 
the  universal  sense  of  the  people,  of  all  the  civilized  nations  of 
the  world. 

We  must  not,  we  cannot  falter,  without  incurring  their  con- 
tempt, and  the  curves  of  our  own  posterity  to  the  remotest 
generations. 

Your  friend, 

JAMES  McKAYK 


DISUNION: 

DEGRADATION    WITHOUT    REMEDY. 


FROM   THE 

The  civil  war  which  for  two  years  past  has  divided  and  de- 
vastated the  United  States  has  produced  its  evil  consequences  in 
Europe  also.  The  scarcity  of  cotton  occasions  great  suffering. 
The  workmen  of  Rouen  and  Mulhouse  .suffer  no  less  than  the 
spinners  and  weavers  of  Lancashire.  Whole  populations  are 
reduced  to  beggary,  and  have  no  resource,  or  hope  of  suste- 
nance during  the  winter,  but  private  charity  or  aid  from  the 
government.  In  such  a  cruel  crisis — in  the  midst  of  such  un- 
merited sufferings — it  is  natural  that  the  public  opinion  of 
Europe  should  be  unsettled,  and  that  they  who  prolong  the  fra- 
tricidal war  should  be  charged  with  culpable  ambition.  Peace 
in  America,  peace  at  any  price,  is  the  urgent  need  ;  is  the  cry 
f  thousands  of  men  among  us  who  are  pinched  with  hunger, 
the  innocent  victims  of  the  passions  and  resentments  that  em- 
brue  in  blood  the  United  States. 

Ihese  complaints  are  but  too  well  founded.  The  world  to- 
day is  a  compact  of  mutual  interests  and  obligations.  For 
modern  nations,  therefore,  who  live  by  industry,  peace  is  a 
necessary  condition  of  existence.  But  unfortunately,  if  it  is  easy 
to  indicate  the  remedy,  to  apply  it  is  almost  impossible.  Until 
now,  it  is  only  by  means  of  war  that  we  could  hope  to  reach  the 
end  of  the  war.  To  throw  ourselves  with  arms  in  our  hands 
between  the  combatants,  for  the  purpose  of  imposing  a  truce 
upon  them,  would  be  an  enterprise  in  which  Europe  would  ex- 
haust all  her  resources,  and  to  what  end?  As  Mr.  Cobden  has 
justly  said,  "It  would  be  far  cheaper  to  feed  the  laboring 
classes,  who  are  now  starving  in  consequence  of  the  American 
crisis,  on  game  and  champagne  wine." 


10 

To  offer  to-day  a  peaceful  intervention  would  be  to  expose 
ourselves  to  a  refusal,  if  it  did  not  even  exasperate  one  of  the 
parties  and  provoke  it  to  measures  of  violence.  It  would  lessen, 
too,  the  chances  of1  our  mediation  being  accepted  at  a  more  fa- 
vorable moment.  We  are  thus  forced  to  remain  spectators  of  a 
deplorable  war,  which  causes  us  innumerable  evils.  We  can 
only  pray  that  exhaustion  or  suffering  may  at  last  appease  the 
maddened  combatants,  and  oblige  them  to  accept  reunion  or 
separation.  A  sad  position  undoubtedly,  but  one  which  neu- 
tral powers  have  at  all  times  been  obliged  to  accept,  and  from 
which  we  cannot  escape  but  at  the  risk  of  unknown  perils. 

But  if  we  have  not  the  right  to  interfere,  we  have  at  least 
that  of  complaining,  and  of  seeking  to  discover  who  is  really 
guilty  of  this  war,  which  so  disturbs  our  well-being.  The  opin- 
ion of  Europe  is  something.  It  may  hasten  events  and  bring 
about  peace  better  than  bayonets.  Unfortunately,  for  two 
years,  public  opinion  in  Europe  has  been  led  astray  and  has 
taken  a  false  direction.  In  arraying  itself  on  the  wrong  side,  it 
but  prolongs  the  resistance,  instead  of  arresting  it. 

The  South  has  found  numerous  and  skilful  advocates  in 
France  and  England.  They  have  presented  her  cause  as  that 
of  justice  and  liberty.  They  have  proclaimed  the  right  of 
separation,  and  have  not  quailed  even  before  the  necessity  of 
apologizing  for  slavery.  To-day  these  arguments  begin  to  loose 
their  force.  Thanks  to  a  few  writers  who  do  not  chaffer  with 
the  great  interests  of  humanity — thanks,  above  all,  to  M.  DE 
GASPAKIN,  light  has  begun  to  break  forth.  We  know  now  what 
to  think  of  the  origin  and  character  of  the  rebellion.  To 
every  impartial  observer  it  is  now  evident  that  the  wrong  lies 
wholly  with  the  South.  It  is  not  necessary  to  be  a  Montesquieu 
to  comprehend  that  a  portion  of  a  people,  whose  rights  are  in  no 
way  end*angered,  but  who  are  led  by  pride  and  ambition  to  at- 
tempt the  destruction  of  national  unity  and  to  rend  assunder 
the  country,  have  no  claim  to  the  sympathy  of  the  French  peo- 
ple. As  to  canonizing  slavery,  that  is  a  work  we  must  leave 
to  southern  preachers.  Not  all  the  ingenuity  of  the  world  will 
ever  be  able  to  retrieve  that  lost  cause.  Even  if  the  confeder- 
ates had  a  thousand  reasons  for  complaining  and  revolting, 
there  must  always  remain  an  ineffaceable  stain  on  their  rebel- 


11 


lion.  No  Christian,  no  liberal  thinker,  can  ever  interest  him- 
self in  men  who,  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
openly  and  audaciously  proclaim  their  wish  to  perpetuate  and 
extend  slavery.  The  planters  themselves,  may  indeed  listen  to 
theories  which  have  intoxicated  and  ruined  them  ;  but  no  such 
sophistries  can  ever  cross  the  ocean. 

The  advocates  of  the  South  have  rendered  her  a  fatal  service. 
They  have  made  her  believe  that  Europe,  enlightened  or  mis- 
led, would  take  sides  with  her  and  would  finally  throw  into 
the  scales  something  more  than  sterile  wishes.  This  delusion 
has  encouraged  and  still  encourges  the  resistance  of  the  South. 
It  prolongs  the  war  and  our  sufferings.  If,  from  the  first,  as 
the  North  had .  a  right  to  expect,  the  friends  of  liberty  had 
boldly  declared  themselves  against  the  policy  of  slavery — if  the 
partisans  of  maritime  peace — if  the  defenders  of  the  rights  of 
neutrals,  had  spoken  in  favor  of  the  Union — had  discouraged  a 
separation  which  could  only  benefit  England,  it  is  probable 
that  the  South  would  have  entered  with  less  temerity  upon  a 
road  without  an  outlet.  If,  in  spite  of  the  courage  and  devotion 
of  her  soldiers,  if,  after  all  the  skill  of  her  generals,  the  South 
fails  in  an  enterprise,  which,  in  my  opinion,  cannot  be  too  often 
denounced,  let  her  lay  the  fault 'at  the  door  of  those  who  had 
so  poor  an  esteem  for  Europe,  as  to  imagine  that  they  could 
suborn  its  public  opinion  to  serve  a  political  scheme,  against 
which  patriotism  protests,  and  which  the  gospel  and  humanity 
alike  condemn. 

"Granted,"  say  they,  "that  the  South  is  wholly  in  the 
wrong ;  but,  after  all,  she  is  determined  to  separate.  Siie  can 
no  longer  live  with  the  North.  The  war  itself,  whatever  may 
be  its  origin,  is  a  new  cause  of  disunion.  By  what  right  can 
twenty  millions  of  men  oblige  ten  millions*  of  their  compatriots 
to  continue  a  detested  alliance,  to  respect  a  contract  which 
they  are  resolved  to  break  at  any  cost?  Is  it  possible  to 
imagine  that  two  or  three  years  of  strife  and  misery  will  make 
the  conquered  and  the  conquerors  live  peaceably  together? 
Can  a  country,  two  or  three  times  as  large  as  France,  be  subju- 


*  And  of  these  ten  millions  there  are  four  millions  of  slayes,  whose  wishes  are  not 
consulted. 


12 

gated  (  \\  oiuu  mere  not  be  always  ill  blood  between  the 
parties?  Separation  is  perhaps  a  misfortune,  but  to-day  the 
misfortune  is  irreparable.  Let  it  be  admitted  that  the  North 
has  the  law,  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  constitution  on  her 
side,  there  remains  always  an  undebateable  point :  the  South 
wills  to  be  master  at  the  South.  You  have  not  the  right  to 
crush  a  people  that  fights  so  bravely.  Resign  yourselves." 

If  we  were  less  enervated  by  the  luxuries  of  modern  life  and 
by  the  idleness  of  a  long  peace,  if  our  hearts  still  retained  some 
remnant  of  that  patriotism  which,  in  1792,  sent  our  forefathers 
to  the  shores  of  the  Rhine,  the  answer  would  be  an  easy  one. 
To-day  I  fear  we  can  no  longer  comprehend  it.  If  to-morrow 
the  south  of  France  should  revolt  and  demand  separation,  if 
Alsace  and  Lorraine  wished  to  isolate  themselves,  what  would 
be,  I  do  not  say  our  right,  but  our  duty  1  Would  we  stop  to 
count  votes,  to  know  if  a  third  or  a  half  of  the  French  people 
had  a  right  to  destroy  the  national  unity,  to  annihilate  France, 
to  rend  in  fragments  the  glorious  heritage  bought  with  the 
blood  of  our  fathers  ?  No,  we  would  take  up  our  muskets  and 
march.  Woe  to  him  who  does  not  feel  that  his  country  is 
sacred,  and  that  it  is  glorious  to  defend  it,  even  at  the  cost  of  all 
possible  sufferings  and  dangers-. 

"  America  is  not  France  ;  it  is  a  confederation,  it  is  not  a 
nation."  Who  says  that  ?  The  South,  to  justify  her  crime.  The 
North  says  the  contrary,  and  for  two  years,  at  the  price  of 
sacrifices  without  number,  affirms  that  the  people  of  the  United 
States  are  one  people,  and  that  their  country  shall  not  be  cut 
in  two.  This  is  noble.  This  is  grand,  and  what  astonishes  me 
is,  that  France  can  remain  unmoved  in  view  of  such  patriotism. 
Love  of  country — is  not  that  the  distinguishing  virtue  of  the 
French  people  1 

What,  then,  is  the  South,  and  whence  does  she  derive  this 
right  of  separation,  so  loudly  proclaimed  ?  Is  it  a  conquered 
people  that  seeks  to  recover  its  independence,  like  Lombardy  2 
Is  it  a  distinct  race  that  wishes  no  longer  to  continue  an  op- 
pressive alliance  ?  No,  they  are  communities  of  planters  estab- 
lished by  American  hands,  on  the  territories  of  the  Union,  who 
revolt  without  any  other  reason  than  their  own  ambition.  Let 
U3  take  a  map  of  the  United  States.  If  we  except  Yirginia,  the 


13 

two  Carolinas,  and  Georgia,  which  were  originally  English  col- 
onies, all  the  rest  of  the  South  is  settled  upon  lands  bought  and 
paid  for  by  the  Union.  That  is  to  say,  the  North  has  borne 
the  greatest  part  of  the  expense.  Louisiana  was  sold  to  the 
United  States  in  ISOi,  by  the  first  consul,  for  fifteen  millions 
of  dollars.  Florida  was  purchased  of  Spain  in  1820,  for 
about  five  millions.  The  Mexican  war,  with  its  cost  of  a  bil- 
lion of  money  and  its  cruel  losses,  was  necessary  to  secure 
Texas.  In  short,  of  all  the  rich  territories  that  border  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  the  Missouri  from  their  source  to  their  mouth,  there 
is  not  one  inch  but  has  been  paid  for  by  the  Union,  and  therefore 
belongs  to  it.  It  is  the  Union  that  has  driven  out  or  indemni- 
fied the  Indians.  It  is  the  Union  that  has  built  all  the  forts, 
the  docks,  the  lighthouses,  and  harbors.  It  is  the  Union  that 
made  all  these  desert  places  of  value,  and  rendered  colonisation 
possible.  Northern  as  well  as  Southern  men  cleared  and 
planted  these  lands,  and  transformed  into  flourishing  States 
these  sterile  solitudes.  Can  old  Europe,  where  unity  is  every- 
where the  result  of  conquest,  show  us  a  title  to  property  so 
sacred  as  this  I  A  country  more  entirely  the  common  work  of 
a  whole  people  ?  And  now,  shall  a  minority  be  permitted  to 
appropriate  a  territory  which  belongs  to  all,  and  to  choose  for 
themselves  the  best  part  of  it  ?  Can  a  minority  be  permitted 
to  destroy  the  Union  and  to  imperil  its  first  benefactors,  with- 
out whom,  indeed,  it  could  not  exist?  To  say  that  this  revolt 
is  not  impious,  is  to  say  that  caprice  constitutes  right. 

It  is  not,  however,  a  political  reason  only,  which  opposes  the 
separation.  -Its  geography,  the  situation  of  the  different  por- 
tions, obliges  the  United  States  to  form  one  nation.  Strabo, 
contemplating  the  vast  country  we  now  call  France,  said,  with 
the  foresight  of  genius,  that  beholding  the  nature  of  the  territory 
and  the  courses  of  the  streams,  it  was  evident  that  the  forests  of 
GauL  then  thinly  inhabited,  would  become  the  home  of  a  great 
people.  Nature  had  prepared  our  territory  to  become  the 
theatre  of  a  great  civilization.  This  is  no  less  true  of  Amei"- 
ica.  She  is,  in  truth,  only  a  double  valley  with  an  impercep- 
tible head-level  and  two  great  water  courses,  the  Mississippi 
and  the  St.  Lawrence.  No  high  mountains  which  separate  and 
isolate  peoples;  no  natural  barriers  like  the  Alps  and  Pyrenees. 


The  West  cannot  live  without  the  Mississippi — to  possess  the 
mouth  of  the  river  is  for  the  farmers  of  the  West  a  question  of 
life  and  death. 

The  United  States  have  felt  this  from  the  first.  When  the 
Ohio  and  Mississippi  were  still  only  streams  lost  in  the  great 
forests  of  the  Southwest — when  the  first  planters  were  but  a 
handful  of  men  scattered  over  the  wilderness,  the  Americans 
knew  already  that  New  Orleans  was  the  key  of  the  whole  coun- 
try. They  would  not  leave  it  in  possession  of  Spain  or  France. 
Napoleon  understood  this.  He  held  in  his  hands  the  future 
greatness  of  the  United  States.  It  did  not  displease  him  to 
cede  to  America  this  vast  territory,  with  the  intention,  he  said, 
of  giving  to  England  a  maritime  rival  which  sooner  or  later 
would  humble  the  pride  of  our  enemy.  He  might  have  dis- 
possessed himself  merely  of  the  left  bank  of  the  river,  and  thus 
have  satisfied  the  United  States,  who  at  that  time  asked  no 
more ;  but  he  did  more  (and  here  1  think  he  was  very  wrong), 
he  renounced,  with  a  stroke  of  the  pen,  a  country  as  vast  as 
half  of  Europe,  and  gave  up  our  last  right  to  the  beautiful  river, 
we  had  ourselves  discovered.  Very  soon  sixty  years  will  have 
elapsed  since  this  cession.  The  states  now  called  Louisiana, 
Arkansas,  Missouri,  Iowa,  Minnesota,  Kansas,  Oregon,  the  ter- 
ritories of  Nebraska,  Dacotah,  Jefferson,  and  Washington,  which 
will  soon  become  states,  have  been  established  on  the  immense 
domain  abandoned  by  Napoleon.  Without  counting  the  slave- 
holding  population,  which  seeks  to  destroy  the  Union,  there  are 
ten  millions  of  freemen  between  Pittsburg  and  Fort  Union,  who 
claim  the  course  and  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  as  Uaving  been 
ceded  to  them  by  France.  It  is  from  us  that  they  hold  their 
title  and  their  possession.  They  have  the  right  of  sixty  years' 
occupancy — a  right  consecrated  by  labor  and  cultivation — a 
right  derived  from  a  solemn  contract,  and  better  still,  from 
nature  and  from  God.  And  for  defending  this  right,  we  re- 
proach them.  They  are  usurpers  and  tyrants,  because  they  will 
not  put  themselves  at  the  mercy  of  an  ambitious  minority. 
What  should  we  say  if  tomorrow,  Normandy,  in  rebellion, 
should  claim  as  her  own  Rouen  and  Havre?  And  yet,  what  is 
the  course  of  the  Seine  compared  to  that  of  the  Mississippi, 
which  extends  two  thousand  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  and 


15 

receives  as  tributaries  all  the  waters  of  the  West?  To  possess 
New  Orleans  is  to  command  a  valley  which  comprises  two- 
thirds  of  the  United  States.  "  We  will  neutralize  the  river," 
they  say.  We  all  know  what  such  promises  are  worth.  We 
have  seen  what  Kussia  did  with  the  mouth  of  the  Danube.  The 
Crimean  war  was  necessary  that  Germany  might  regain  the  free 
use  of  her  great  river.  If  to-morrow  a  new  war  should  break 
out  between  Austria  and  Russia,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  pos- 
session of  the  Danube  would  be  the  stake  of  the  contest. 

It  cannot  be  otherwise  in  America  from  the  day  when  the 
Mississippi,  for  hundreds  of  leagues,  shall  flow  between  two  slave- 
holding  shores.  Already  the  effect  of  the  war  has  been  to  stop 
the  exportation  of  wheat  and  corn,  the  riches  of  the  West. 

.In  1861  it  became  necessary  to  burn  the  useless  crops,  to  the 
great  injury  of  Europe,  who  is  the  gainer  by  these  exports. 
The  South  understands  so  thoroughly  the  strength  of  her  posi- 
tion, that  her  ambition  is  to  separate  the  valley  of  the  Missis- 
sippi from  the  Eastern  States,  to  unite  herself  with  the  West, 
and  to  condemn  thus  the  Yankees  of  New  England  to  a  ruin- 
ous isolation.  The  Confederates  use  the  Mississippi  as  a  bait 
by  which  they  hope  to  reconstruct,  profitably  to  themselves — 
that  is  to  say,  in  the  INTERESTS  OF  SLAVERY — the  Union  which 
they  have  broken  up  through  FEAR  OF  LIBERTY. 

We  see,  then,  what  to  think  of  the  pretended  tyranny  of  the 
North  ;  what  truth  there  is  in  the  assertion  that  she  wishes  to 
oppress  and  subjugate  the  South.  On  the  contrary,  the  North 
only  defends  herself.  In  maintaining  the  Union,  it  is  her  RIGHT, 
it  is  her  EXISTENCE  that  she  would  save. 

Thus  far  I  have  spoken  in  the  name  of  the  material  interests 
only — legitimate  interests,  and  which,  founded  on  solemn  titles, 
constitutes  a  sacred  right ;  but  if  we  examine  the  moral  and 
political  interests— interests  of  a  superior  order — we  shall  see 
still  more  clearly  that  the  North  cannot  yield  without  self- 
destruction. 

The  United  States  are  a  Republic,  the  freest  and  at  the 
same  time  the  mildest  and  happiest  government  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  In  what  consists  this  prosperity  of  the 
Americans?  They  are  alone  upon  an  immense  territory ;  they 
have  never  been  obliged  to  concentrate  power  and  weaken 
liberty,  for  the  purpose  of  resisting  the  ambition  and  jealousy  of 


16 

their  neighbors.  In  the  United  States  there  was  no  standing 
army,  no  great  war  navy.  The  immense  snms  spent  by  us  to 
avoid  or  maintain  war  were  used  by  the  Americans  to  establish 
schools — in  giving  to  every  citizen,  rich  or  poor,  that  education, 
that  instruction  which  constitutes  the  moral  grandeur  and  the 
true  riches  of  a  people.  Their  foreign  policy  was  contained  in 
a  single  maxim.  Never  to  intermeddle  in  the  political  quarrels 
of  Europe  on  the  sole  condition  that  Europe  would  never  inter- 
fere in  their  affairs,  and  would  respect  the  liberty  of  the  seas. 

Thanks  to  those  wise  principles,  bequeathed  to  them  by 
Washington,  in  his  immortal  Farewell  Address,  the  United 
States  have  enjoyed  for  eighty  years  a  peace  undisturbed  but 
once,  in  1812,  when  they  were  obliged  to  withstand  England 
and  maintain  the  rights  of  neutrals.  For  the  last  seventy 
years,  we  have  spent  billions  to  maintain  our  liberty  or  our 
preponderance  in  Europe.  The  United  States  have  employed 
these  billions  in  ameliorations  of  all  kinds.  That  is  the  secret 
of  their  prodigious  success ;  their  isolation  has  made  their 
prosperity. 

Suppose,  now,  that  this  separation  should  be  accomplished,  and 
that  the  new  confederacy  should  comprise  all  the  slave-states  ; 
the  North  loses  at  oHce  her  POWER  and  her  INSTITUTIONS.  The 
Republic  is  stabbed  to  the  heart.  There  would  be  in  America 
two  rival  nations,  always  on  the  eve  of  conflict.  Peace  would 
by  no  means  extinguish  enmities.  It  would  not  obliterate  the 
memories  of  past  greatness,  nor  of  the  UNION  DESTROYED. 

The  South  victorious  would  be  doubtless  no  less  a  friend  of 
slavery,  no  less  in  love  with  dominion,  than  in  former  times. 
The  enemies  of  slavery,  now  masters  of  their  own  policy,  would 
not  surely  be  made  more  moderate  by  separation.  What  would 
the  Southern  Confederacy  be  to  the  North  ?  A  foreign  power 
established  in  America,  with  a  frontier  of  fifteen  hundred  miles 
— a  frontier  open  on  all  sides,  and  conseqnently,  always  threat- 
ening or  threatened.  This  power,  hostile  by  reason  of  its  vicin- 
ity, and  still  more  so  on  account  of  its  institutions,  would  pos- 
sess some  of  the  most  important  portions  of  the  New  World. 
She  would  own  half  of  the  sea-coasts  of  the  Union — she  would 
command  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  an  inland  sea  one  third  the  size 
of  the  Mediterranean.  She  would  be  mistress  of  the  mouth  of 


17 

the  Mississippi,  and  could  at  her  will  ruin  the  people  of  the 
"West.  The  remnant  of  the  old  Union  must,  then,  always 
maintain  an  attitude  of  defense  towards  their  rivals.  Custom- 
house and  frontier  difficulties,  rivalries,  jealousies — all  the 
scoufges  of  old  Europe,  would  at  once  overwhelm  America.  It 
would  be  necsssary  to  establish  custom-houses  over  an  extent  of 
five  hundred  leagues — to  construct  and  arm  forts  along  this 
immense  frontier,  support  a  large  standing  army  and  navy.  In 
other  words — they  must  renounce  the  old  constitution — weaken 
municipal  independence  and  concentrate  power.  Adieu  then 
to  the  old  and  glorious  liberty  !  Adieu  to  those  institutions 
•which  made  America  the  common  country  of  all  those  who 
lacked  a  breathing  place  in  Europe.  The  work  of  Washing- 
ton would  be  utterly  destroyed,  and  the  new  condition  of  things 
would  be  full  of  difficulty  and  of  peril.  I  understand  how  such 
a  future  might  rejoice  the  people  who  can  never  pardon  Amer- 
ica her  prosperity  and  her  grandeur.  History  is  full  of  these 
deplorable  jealouses.  But  I  understand,  even  still  better  how 
a  people  accustomed  to  liberty  should  risk  their  last  man  and 
their  last  dollar  to  keep  the  inheritance  of  their  fathers,  and  I 
respect  it.  What  I  do  not  comprehend  is,  that  there  should  be 
found  in  Europe,  people,  calling  themselves  liberal,  who  reproach 
the  North  for  her  courageous  resistance,  and  counsel  a  shameful 
abdication.  The  war  is  a  terrible  evil ;  but  from  the  war  a 
durable  peace  may  spring.  The  South  may  be  worn  out  by  an 
exhausting  struggle.  The  old  U  nion  may  be  again  restored — 
the  future  may  be  saved.  But  what  can  be  the  issue  of  separ- 
ation, if  not  WAR  WITHOUT  END  and  miseries  without  number  ? 
The  dismemberment  of  the  Union — the  rendering  asunder  of 
the  country,  would  be  a  DEGRADATION  WITHOUT  REMEDY.  A  fate 
so  shameful  is  to  be  accepted,  only,  when  one  is  utterly  crushed 
out  and  trodden  under  foot. 

So  far  I  have  argued  on  the  hypothesis  that  the  South  would 
remain  an  independent  power.  But  unless  the  West  should 
join  the  Confederate?,  re-establishing  a  Union  which  should 
exclude  New  England,  this  independence  is  a  chimera.  It 
might  last  a  few  years,  but  in  ten  or  twenty  years,  when  the 
West  shall  have  doubled  or  tripled  its  free  population,  what  will 
the  Confederacy  be — weakened,  per  force,  by  servile  cultiva- 


18 

tion— compared  to  a  people  of  thirty  millions  of  men  shutting 
her  in  on  two  sides?  In  self-defence  the  South  would  be  forced 
to  lean  on  Europe.  Her  existence  would  depend  on  her  being 
protected  by  a  maritime  power.  England  alone  is  in  a  condi- 
tion to  guaranty  her  sovereignty.  This  would  be  a  new  danger 
for  free  America  and  for  Europe.  There  is  no  navy  in  the 
South,  and  with  slavery  there  never  will  be  any.  England  at 
once  would  seize  the  monopoly  of  cotton,  and  would  furnish 
the  South  with  capital  and  ships.  In  two  words,  the  triumph  of 
the  South  is  the  re-establishment  of  England  on  the  continent, 
whence  she  was  driven  by  the  policy  of  Lonis  Sixteenth  and 
Napoleon.  It  weakens  neutrals,  it  entangles  France  again,  in 
all  those  vexed  questions  of  liberty  of  the  seas,  which  have  cost 
us  already  two  centuries  of  struggle  and  suffering.  The  Ameri- 
can Union,  while  defending  its  own  rights,  had  assured  the 
freedom  of  the  seas.  The  Union  destroyed,  English  supremacy 
would  revive  again.  It  is  peace  banished  from  the  world  ;  it  is 
a  return  to  a  policy  which  has  so  far  only  favored  our  rivals. 

This  is  what  Napoleon  felt  to  be  true — this  is  what  we  forget 
to-day.  It  would  seem  as  if  history  were  merely  a  collection 
of  pleasant  stories  to  amuse  children.  No  one  is  willing  to 
understand  the  lessons  of  the  past.  If  the  experience  of  our 
fathers  was  not  lost  upon  our  ignorance,  we  should  see 
that  in  defending  her  own  independence,  and  in  main- 
taining the  national  unity,  the  North  defends  our  cause  as 
well  as  her  own.  All  our  prayers  would  be  for  the  triumph  of 
our  old  and  faithful  friends.  To  weaken  the  United  States  will 
be  to  weaken  ourselves.  At  the  first  quarrel  with  England  we 
shall  regret,  but  too  late,  that  we  abandoned  a  policy  which 
for  forty  years  has  been  the  guaranty  of  our  own  safety. 

In  writing  these  pages,  I  do  not  expect  to  convert  those  who 
have  in  their  hearts  an  innate  sympathy  for  slavery.  I  write 
lor  those  honest  souls,  who  allow  themselves  to  be  enticed  by 
the  great  words  of  national  independence,  paraded  before  their 
eyes  purposely  to  deceive  and  delude  them.  The  Soutli  has 
never  been  threatened.  To-day  she  might  come  back  into 
the  Union,  even  with  her  slaves.  It  is  only  demanded  of  her 
not  to  destroy  the  national  unity,  and  not  to  subvert  liberty. 
We  cannot  repeat  it  too  often  :  the  North  is  not  the  aggressor. 
It  only  defends,  as  every  true  citizen  should,  the  national  com- 


19 

pact,  tlie  integrity  of  the  country.  It  is  sad  that  it  has  found 
ao  little  support  in  Europe,  and  especially  in  France.  They 
relied  on  us — in  us  they  placed  their  trust — and  we  have 
abandoned  them  as  if  the  sacred  words  of  COUNTRY  and  of 
LIBERTY  no  longer  awoke  a  response  in  our  hearts.  What  has 
become  of  the  days  when  the  whole  of  France  applauded  the 
yonng  Lafayette,  as  he  buckled  on  his  sword  in  the  cause  of 
America?  Who  has  imitated  him,  who  has  recalled  that  glori- 
ous memory  ?  Have  we  grown  so  old  as  to  have  forgotten  all 
that? 

What  will  be  the  issue  of  the  war?  It  is  impossible  to  fore- 
see. The  South  may  succeed.  The  North  may  be  divided  and 
exhausted  by  intestine  strife.  The  Union  is,  perhaps,  even  now, 
i>ut  a  great  memory.  But  whatever  may  be  the  future,  or 
whatever  fortune  may  attend  it,  the  duty  of  every  man  who 
docs  not  allow  himself  to  be  carried  away  by  the  success  of  the 
present  hour,  is  to  sustain  and  encourage  the  North  to  the  last 
— to  condemn  those  whose  ambition  threatens  to  destroy  the 
most  perfect  and  the  most  patriotic  work  of  humanity — to  re- 
main faithful  to  the  end  of  the  war,  and,  even  after  defeat,  to 
those,  who  will  have  fought  to  the  last  moment  for  RIGHT  and 
LIBERTY. 

EDOUARD  LABOULAYE. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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